


Sparring Match

by The_Sickfic_Sideblog



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Klance if you squint, Nausea, Sheith if you squint, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9625847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Sickfic_Sideblog/pseuds/The_Sickfic_Sideblog
Summary: Keith wakes up late, and that is only the very start of his horrible day.





	

“ _Keith Kogane get your paladin ass up to the kitchen this instant!_ ”

Keith shot out of bed and fumbled his hand against the intercom controls, “Be there in a second!” Why was Coran yelling at him so angrily? Did they need to form Voltron? Was Zarkon attacking? What time was it, anyway?

Keith glanced at the clock as he pulled on the Voltron Armor legwear. 10:30am. He slept in late. Almost four hours late. No wonder everyone was mad at him.

In the elevator, with sleep still egging his mind, Keith was starting to piece together why he had slept late. His tongue felt a little too big for his mouth, and the elevator seemed to sway as it ascending innumerable floors. A small wave of nausea tickled the bottom of his stomach. He glanced around the elevator as if checking if anyone was watching, and pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. To him, it felt a bit warmer than usual, but he wasn’t sure if that was because he just got out of a warm bed, or if there was a temperature difference between his hand and his head, or if he truly was feverish.

 _It doesn’t matter,_ he thought, shoving the armored gauntlets on his hands, _Can’t let it get in the way of whatever we’re doing._

Just as he tightened his helmet on, the elevator doors opened. Keith gripped his bayard and launched out of the doors, ready to take orders from Shiro and kick some purple Galra ass. Instead, he saw the rest of the paladins gathered around the large table in their everyday clothes. No other bayards were drawn, no other armor was dawned, and no one looked nearly as panicked as Keith did behind his visor.  With a quick scan, the Red Paladin saw the table sprawled with... _green hotcakes?_

Everyone stopped their conversations, and confusion spread across their faces. Keith shot his gaze to the Altean that woke him so sharply.

“What’s going on? What’s the emergency?” he panted, breath still heavy from such sudden exertion. From the corner of his vision, he saw Shiro roll his eyes.

“I told you not to wake him up like that.”

Coran smiled sheepishly, and held up a plate of the small green disks, “There is no emergency, Keith. I wanted to get you up quickly because I made Earth pancakes! This is the last batch, and they’re much better when they’re warm.”

Keith retracted his bayard and stood in disbelief. Every part of him wanted to feel angry that he was disturbed so violently for something so simple, but he couldn’t get the confusion out of his mind. In truth, it was a huge accomplishment that Coran made hotcakes. “.....how?”

“Turns out, one of the organic liquid compounds on Altea acts almost exactly like pancake batter,” Hunk answered, “And I melted down those glucose blocks to make syrup.”

“We’ve always used this as ingredients for other things,” Coran continued, “But we never thought about grilling it on its own! You humans are smarter than I gave you credit for!”

With the confusion out of the way, Keith’s anger boiled up, “You woke me up for hotcakes?!”

“No, they’re _pan_ cakes, silly!” Coran laughed, “Did you get enough sleep?”

_“OBVIOUSLY NOT!”_

Shiro stood and put a hand on Keith's shoulder, “Come on, Keith. Coran did a pretty good job. And I was about to go wake you up anyway. Did your alarm go off?”

Even though the armor, Shiro’s touch seemed to melt all the anger away. When he thought about it, Keith didn’t remember even hearing his alarm. He was so deep in his slumber that even the incessant beeping couldn’t wake him up, “Must’ve broke or something.”

Keith found his seat in between Lance and Shiro, not unlike he was in Voltron. A plate of the green breakfast slide in front of him, followed by a small cup of melted glucose. As his adrenaline drained, nausea took its place. He was almost positive that a single bite would send him running to the bathroom. A wave of heat ran down the back of his neck, and he swallowed hard.

The Blue Paladin stuck a fork in Keith’s stack of hotcakes, “They kind of taste like someone tried to make pancake-flavored cement but the cement never hardened. It’s surprisingly good!”

Keith couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at Lance’s description. He looked to Pidge for reassurance.

“That’s...actually pretty accurate. But it’s good! That might just be from eating food goo for who knows how long, though. Just try not to think about it too much.” She shrugged, and put another fork-full into her mouth.

Another stomach turn made Keith’s decision for him. “I think I’ll pass.” He pushed the plate forward, not daring to look at Coran, whose face was surely shattered. He felt a bit bad but felt much more relieved that he didn’t have to eat a heavy breakfast.

Shiro’s voice came from his left, “Are you feeling alright? You always eat a huge breakfast. And you look a little off.”

Shiro lifted his metal hand, aiming to press it against Keith’s forehead, but the Red Paladin ducked out of the way. “I’m fine. You can’t blame me for not wanting to eat green hotcakes that are described as ‘good cement mix’.”

From behind him, Coran made a small sad noise, almost like a whimper. Even though his stomach begged him not to, Keith huffed and pulled the plate back towards him. All eyes were on him, and if they looked long enough, they might’ve seen that he looked just as awful as he felt. The last thing he wanted was them fussing over him, getting overly worried about something that would pass soon enough. To avoid that, he could tolerate a stomach ache. “Fine.”

The first few bites settled well. Some of the aches in Keith’s gut were evidently caused by hunger. But once that problem was solved, the nausea came running back once more. Every bite was a huge effort to get down, threatening to jump back up Keith’s throat if he wasn’t careful. The glucose syrup made the bites slide down easier, but it didn’t help the mixture churning inside his gut. Still, he powered through and managed to get down a whole plate, and Coran was very pleased.

 _At least we’re training in our lions today,_ he thought, _Maybe I can get Red to use autopilot, just for a little while._

As if Shiro read his mind, the Black Paladin spoke up, “Oh, I didn’t tell you. We’re not gonna train in Voltron today.”

“What?” He sounded a bit more worried than he intended.

“I thought it would be better if we did some hand-to-hand combat instead. We’ve been boarding ships and planets an awful lot lately, and I want to make sure everyone has at least some experience outside of their Lions. They might not always be there for us.”

Keith blanched. This was the opposite of what he wanted. With the cement hotcakes sitting heavily in his uneasy stomach, moving around was the last thing he wanted to do.

* * *

But Keith found himself on the training mat, toy knife in hand, waiting to face off against Pidge. He knew she had the size advantage of them - she could easily dodge and maneuver. Normally, he would have the speed advantage, but his movements were sluggish and clumsy. Every shift was an effort to keep breakfast down, and the heat of fever was starting to get to him. He was grateful that the training sweat masked his unwell appearance.

“I know you can do better than that!” Pidge taunted, holding her own knife tightly, “Don’t hold back on me!”

Keith lunged straight forward, an unwise move that allowed Pidge to easily dodge to the right, take Keith’s knife-wielding wrist, and twist it behind his back. He was on his knees within seconds, plastic knife pressed to the back of his neck. When Pidge released him, he spent an extra few seconds on the ground, trying to stabilize the world around him. Not only was his stomach set on a spin cycle, but the room was also circulating around him.

Shiro said something in the background, something about regrouping and doing something different, but Keith was too focused on breathing to hone in on the words. _If I can just breathe enough, I won't throw up._

“Did you hear that Keith?” Shiro asked, much more clearly this time, “I said you should train with Lance for a while. We’re gonna watch and critique each other.”

Keith swallowed, “Alright.”

He stood up. In an attempt to ward off the waves of heat down his neck, he shed his jacket. Hunk cackled as he sat on the bench.

“Ooooooh, Lance’s gonna get it now! The gloves are off- well, no, the gloves are still on. The jacket’s off.”

Shiro took the Blue and Red Paladins’ toy knives away, “Now, don’t actually hurt each other. But I think we should learn to fight without rules. The Galra won’t take the time to let you get up or catch your breath. Think outside the box.”

The paladins assumed the position. Keith put his fists up in defense, and Lance’s image started to swirl in front of him. He couldn’t keep up with the saliva pooling in his mouth - swallowing became almost impossible.

_Just one more fight. If I take him down quick, I can sit down and relax. Just one more fight._

Shiro whistled to start the training.

It happened so fast, but also not fast enough. Taking Shiro's advice, Lance played dirty. The side of his hand hit Keith right in the stomach, causing him to almost double over. All of his focus left the fight and concentrated on the queasy hiccup that escaped him. Before he knew it, Lance had him in a headlock, unable to prevent the convulsions in his stomach any longer.

All the nausea that Keith kept back that morning came forth in a wet burp and was immediately followed by a thick stream of vomit. With the headlock position, it hit Lance's arm first, splattered down Keith's shirt, and finally landed on the floor. Lance immediately let go, scrambling back in terror, leaving the Red Paladin to fall to his hands and knees and get vomit on the palms of his gloves.

Chaos erupted in the training room. Lance wasn’t a sympathy puker, but the way the sick clung to his jacket had him doubled over and gagging as well. Hunk with his weak stomach ran out of the room, a concerned Pidge trailing right behind him. Shiro knelt next to Keith and held him steady as his core trembled. He pressed his lips together to hold it back, but his body was done taking orders from his mind. Each heave brought up more burning acid to his throat and tongue, along with the faint taste of the hotcakes.

“Easy, Keith...” Shiro soothed, running his hand up and down Keith’s back, “Just get it all up, don’t worry about it.”

As if his body needed any more permission. It felt as though his stomach was pushing up more than he swallowed down earlier in the day. It felt disgusting and uncontrollable. It felt never-ending, allowing Keith to panic about the situation.

 _Fuck, I threw up all over Lance, everyone’s going to hate me for it. Everyone’s going to try to coddle me or get mad that I didn’t tell them,_ his thoughts screamed, _I can’t stop throwing up..._

But eventually, he did. All the contents of his stomach laid scattered across the floor and his front, and he was left retching and coughing, trying to catch his breath. He didn’t dare open his eyes, partially to not see his teammates staring at him, partially to not see his breakfast in front of him again.

“Keith...?”

He forgot that Shiro was there. He had to say something, anything, any kind of excuse he could come up with. But his brain refused to work.

“I-I....I just....ju- _urrrp-_ ” he shut his mouth tightly in case more came up, but none did, “...I’m sorry. Just felt sick all of a sudden...”

Shiro’s human hand pressed against his forehead, and he made a little noise of disapproval, “‘All of a sudden’?”

Keith felt the blood run to his cheeks, “...all day.”

Suddenly, he was being hoisted up from under the arms and steadied on his feet, “That’s what I thought. Let’s go clean you up.”

“But Lance-”

“Lance isn’t burning up. He can handle himself for the moment. Come on.”

Despite Keith’s weak protests, Shiro pulled him into his bedroom and sat him down in front of the toilet, just in case. Keith was convinced the Black Paladin had some other-worldly senses because as soon as he sat down, he started gagging again. More nothing came up, but that didn’t make the experience any better. His throat still burned, his body still shook, his stomach muscles still ached.

When the episode was over, Shiro was by his side again, offering a new shirt and a glass of water. Keith slipped off his dirty clothing and realized that Shiro had found his pajama shirts. Something about the softness let his shoulders relax.

“You were feeling sick all day, huh? That explains why you got up late,” Shiro said, taking a seat next to Keith, “Why didn’t you say something? I would’ve let you out of practice.”

Keith truly didn’t know how to respond. He had already thrown up all his guts, he didn’t want to expose his intentions too. He settled for saying nothing, and just hovered over the bowl. Shiro sighed, handed him the glass of water, and gathered up the gloves and shirt.

“Rinse out your mouth and head to bed. I’m gonna see if this ship has a washing machine or something. I’ll be back soon.”

The older paladin stood, and Keith’s eyes followed him out the door. When Shiro left his sight, Lance entered, looking concerned and ever-so-slightly pale. He had something in his hands, but Keith looked down before he could identify it. The last person he wanted to see was the one he puked on.

Lance slowly stepped into the room, as if approaching a wounded animal. “Keith? What’s going on, man?”

Keith didn’t have the energy for a sarcastic remark about how obvious it was, “‘m sick. Sorry I puked on you.”

“It wasn’t your fault, especially if you were feeling sick to your stomach. _I_ was the one who punched you in the gut.”

Keith burped the last bit of nausea into his bare fist, “Yeah, that didn’t help...”

Suddenly, a familiar sensation draped across Keith’s shoulders. He looked up and saw that Lance had brought his jacket from the training room, and was putting it on him like a shawl. He had completely forgotten about it as Shiro rushed him out. Something about wearing his jacket again made him feel much safer. Just like the Blue Paladin, it was something familiar that he could latch onto.

“Well, you heard Shiro,” Lance said, “Wash your mouth out. I’ll help you get back to bed.”


End file.
